Ice skating in San Polo, chandeliers in Piazza San Marco, Lucio Fontana at the Cini Foundation, Carlo Moretti at the Glass Museum, art, photography, and theater. Here are the events of the Venetian winter in Venice
Venice welcomes the month of December 2024 with numerous art and culture appointments. Here is the first part of our guide on what to do and see in Venice in December 2024.
Events and Exhibitions
- Ice Skating in Campo San Polo
until March 4, 2025
The ice rink in Campo San Polo will remain open until March 4, 2025 (the last day of Carnival) to experience the Venetian winter with a pair of skates on your feet. Info and hours: www.veneziaunica.it.
- Murano Illuminates the World
until March 4, 2025
Procuratie Vecchie in Piazza San Marco
Eleven Murano glass chandeliers light up at sunset, illuminating the Procuratie Vecchie and transforming Piazza San Marco into an open-air gallery. The project brings together international artists and architects, master glassmakers, and Murano furnaces in a contemporary reinterpretation of the classic chandelier; it is promoted for the second year by The Venice Glass Week and the City of Venice.
Works, Artists, Masters, and Furnaces
- AZ2024, Liceo Abate Zanetti & Eros Raffael, master Eros Raffael, ISS Abate Zanetti
- Bilancia, Marina and Susanna Sent
- Colpo di vento, Kimiko Yoshida, master Gianni Seguso, Seguso Gianni Murano
- dieXe, Kengo Kuma, Salviati
- Digit Light, Emmanuel Babled, NasonMoretti
- Enlighten’s the Word, Joseph Kosuth, master Marco Barbini, Barbini Specchi Veneziani
- Inariaa, Arturo Tedeschi, masters Nicola Moretti and Stefano Bullo, Nicola Moretti + Vetrate Artistiche Murano
- Quadri, Philippe Starck, Aristide Najean, master Cristiano Rossetto, Najean & Sy
- Solomon Chopsticks, Fiedler O Mastrangelo, master Giorgio Giuman + Michele Urban Moleria, Giorgio Giuman, sponsor United Risk
- TransFormation, Deborah Czeresko, masters Giorgio Valentini, Claudio Zama, and Massimiliano Schiavon + Will Bardella Moleria, Massimiliano Schiavon Art Team
- Venetian Wavebreakers Chandelier, Hans Weigand, master Nicola Causin, Berengo Studio
- Homage to Basaglia: From the Asylum to Care
from December 4 to January 25, 2025 – closed from December 23 to January 8, 2025
EMERGENCY, Fondamenta San Giacomo 2212 Giudecca
Email infovenice@emergency.it
Free admission from Thursday to Saturday, 12 PM–6 PM
A tribute to the doctor who changed the concept of mental health, taking his struggle beyond the walls of asylums and the boundaries of the possible. EMERGENCY, Archivio Basaglia, and Associazione Gian Butturini remember Franco Basaglia on the centenary of his birth with a photographic exhibition by Gian Butturini that traces the revolution started at the psychiatric hospital in Trieste. The images capture the concrete signs of a historic change: open wards, broken walls, and lives freed from segregation.
- InLaguna Film Festival 2024
from December 4 to 8
Various locations in Venice
Cinema as a point of connection with the city is the focus of the International Independent Film Festival InLaguna, organized by the Rete Cinema in Laguna association. For the official opening, it will pay tribute to Swiss director Daniel Schmid with Out of Competition screenings of the films La Paloma and The Written Face at Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi (Dorsoduro), in collaboration with the Swiss Consulate and the Cinémathèque Suisse.
The evening of Thursday, December 5, at Cinema Rossini will be dedicated to the writer Daniele Del Giudice, in collaboration with the Einaudi bookstore and the publishing house of the same name, featuring the screening of Wimbledon Stadium by Mathieu Amalric, in the presence of the actor and the French director.
Among the films In Competition, hosted between the Casa del Cinema in Salizada San Stae and the Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, the program features the Italian premieres of Olivia y las nubes by Tómas Pichardo Espaillat, La Imatge Permanent by Laura Ferrés, and À Son Image by Thierry De Peretti, who will be present to meet the audience.
Two Industry Days (December 7 and 8) with meetings organized at the Super Zazà comic book store, designed to foster dialogue and exchange between audiovisual professionals, Venetian productions, and young people aspiring to work in the sector.
Romanian director Radu Jude will close the festival on Sunday, December 8, with the presentation of his film Don’t Expect Too Much from the End of the World at Cinema Rossini.
- Storie sotto el felze 2024
Thursday, December 5, at 4 PM
Libreria Marciana, Piazza San Marco 7
The final appointment of Storie sotto el felze 2024: a meeting dedicated to the Mariegole editorial series, which uses an interdisciplinary approach to enhance Venice’s intangible cultural heritage. Piero Brunello, historian, and Giovanni Caniato, curator, recount the journey of a project born in 2007 from the collaboration between the El Felze association and Cierre edizioni.
The arts and crafts of the Serenissima within the pages of volumes such as L’arte dei remeri and Con il legno e con l’oro. Each book restores the memory of materials and knowledge, passed down through centuries of gestures and practices.
The concluding toast, offered by the Associazione Piazza San Marco, seals a meeting between history, culture, and craftsmanship.
- A Successful Editorial Experience in Service of Venice’s Intangible Cultural Heritage
Thursday, December 5, at 4 PM
Salone Sansoviniano, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana
Free admission while seats last
Email b-marc.stampa@cultura.gov.it
A meeting dedicated to the Mariegole series, created thanks to the collaboration of the El Felze Association and Cierre Edizioni, discussing Venetian arts, history, and intangible heritage, with contributions from Piero Brunello, Giovanni Caniato, and Andrea Dilemmi.
Stefano Trovato, director of the Biblioteca Marciana, will open the event, which will conclude with a toast offered by the Associazione Piazza San Marco. The conference will be streamed on the Library’s YouTube channel.
- Lucio Fontana: Origins and Imagery
Thursday, December 5 and Friday, December 6
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore
Free admission while seats last
Twenty-one speakers will explore Fontana’s creative legacy, from his experience in Argentina to the exhibitions that defined his central role in 20th-century international art.
The Institute of Art History of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and the Fondazione Lucio Fontana, with the support of Intesa Sanpaolo, promote a dialogue among scholars to analyze Fontana’s production through new perspectives and recent studies. The conference represents an opportunity to delve into the experiments that marked his career from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Between inventions and research, Fontana’s work spans materials and languages that position him among the pioneers of contemporary art, an artist capable of inspiring generations and redefining the boundaries of the artistic imagination.
- RE CHICCHINELLA
Friday, December 6, at 8:30 PM | Saturday, December 7, at 7 PM | Sunday, December 8, at 4 PM
Teatro Goldoni, San Marco 4650/B
Emma Dante engages with Lo cunto de li cunti by Giambattista Basile, bringing back to the stage a fundamental narrative model that, through ogres, dragons, bold heroes, talking horses, princesses, and fairies, has inspired Italian and European fairy tale writers.
A king, prisoner of his own illness and an unloving family, discovers an inexplicable change: a hen, having accidentally entered his body, slowly transforms him from within. The sovereign and the animal become indistinguishable, while the court observes the process with wonder and detachment.
Through a narrative made of words that evoke images and symbols, the story highlights human dynamics and power relations. The king’s metamorphosis becomes a tale about the body and identity, unfolding between irony and mystery.
- Secret Arborescence
from December 6 (opening at 6 PM) to January 12, 2025
Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, San Marco 4303
The white wood sculptures by Michele Zaza, approximately 80 cm high with gilded edges, seem to emerge from the floor of the Sala Tintoretto at Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, a site known for its unique external spiral staircase (bòvolo in Venetian).
The site-specific installation transforms the space into a symbolic dimension between light, matter, and spirituality, where seven neon lights on the floor illuminate the sculptures, creating an ethereal atmosphere in dialogue with two large specular photographs of a male and female face, transfigured by golden makeup.
- Double Meaning: In Your Hands
Saturday, December 7
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Dorsoduro 701
Info and reservations: doppiosenso@guggenheim-venice.it
The Double Meaning program makes the art of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection accessible through tactile paths and multisensory experiences that allow visitors to explore artworks through touch, with relief reproductions and descriptive sheets in Braille and high-legibility characters.
The event, which is free and subject to availability, is dedicated to blind, visually impaired, and sighted people and is led by Valeria Bottalico, an expert in museum accessibility and curator of the project.
At the end of the tour, created with the support of the Milan Institute for the Blind, the blind sculptor Felice Tagliaferri will lead a workshop that helps consolidate mental images through manual experience.
- Paolo Toffolutti: Soggetti Smarriti
from December 9 (opening Friday, December 6 at 6 PM) to January 6, 2025
SPARC*, Campo Santo Stefano 2828a
Opening hours: Monday – Friday, 10 AM–6 PM or by appointment
Curated by Luca Berta and Francesca Giubilei, Soggetti Smarriti (Lost Subjects) proposes a reflection on moments of uncertainty and fragmentation. The works of Paolo Toffolutti represent interruptions, incomplete traces, and voids that seep into our way of seeing and remembering. Every mark on the canvases suggests a distraction or a lack: forgotten words, elusive concepts, details left in suspense.
- STORIES OF FACTORIES, STORIES OF FAMILIES: Donation of Carlo and Giovanni Moretti 1958-2013
from December 6 to June 30, 2025
Glass Museum, Murano, Spazio Ex Conterie
In Murano, 453 glass works recount the stylistic and technical evolution of the Carlo Moretti company, founded in 1958 by Carlo and Giovanni Moretti, who redefined the language of glass with creations that combine essential lines, creativity, and craftsmanship.
- The Tea Ceremony
December 6, 14, 20, and 27. Two sessions: at 5 PM and 6:30 PM
On December 14 at 5 PM, the ceremony will be accessible to deaf people thanks to the presence of a LIS (Italian Sign Language) interpreter
FAI Olivetti Showroom, Piazza San Marco
Email fainegoziolivetti@fondoambiente.it
The story of the bond between architect Carlo Scarpa and Japanese culture comes to life with a guided tour followed by the tea ceremony, a refined Japanese art codified in the 16th century, led by master Senyo Machida, who will reveal the secrets and history of this ritual.
The event explores the influence of Japanese architecture on Scarpa’s work, visible in his references to wood, light and shadow, and the concept of Ma, a term indicating the interval or empty space between two elements, not as an absence but as a presence that gives meaning to the whole.
- Rubelli for Christmas
from December 5 to 23
<at ” href=”https://www.rubelli.com” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Rubelli, Ca’ Pisani, San Marco 3395
Fabrics, details, and craftsmanship of artisanal quality: Rubelli opens the doors of its historic headquarters and showroom at Ca’ Pisani Rubelli for the traditional pre-Christmas sale, in a journey that highlights the quality of Italian weaving and the passion for the pursuit of beauty in a constantly evolving present.
The protagonists are the precious fabrics that recount processing techniques, care in materials, and the details that define quality, worked with natural fibers such as silk, cotton, linen, vegetable viscose, hemp, and recycled fabrics according to a precise protocol of sustainability and compatibility.
Three meetings are scheduled in the showroom on December 7, 15, and 21 at 4 PM (with reservation at venezia@rubelli.com) focusing on:
– Processing techniques, from complex textures to the weaves that characterize every Rubelli creation.
– History and inspirations, connecting the past to contemporary productions, highlighting the value of research and craftsmanship.
– The work behind every creation, showing how details, materials, and finishes are fundamental to recognizing quality and excellence.
An absolute novelty are the Fashion Days – Friday 13, Saturday 14, and Sunday 15 from 11 AM to 7 PM – during which a seamstress will be available for advice on how to transform Rubelli fabrics into personalized garments.
During the three weeks of the event, it will be possible to visit the Rubelli Foundation, which will host guided tours to discover the company’s historical archive: a treasure trove of drawings, patterns, and documents that recount the journey of the historic Venetian manufacturer.
Free visits will be on Thursdays and Fridays at 11 AM and 4 PM, and exceptionally on Saturday, December 14 at 4 PM – by reservation only and subject to availability. (venezia@rubelli.com – 041 5236110)
- Inauguration of the 2024-2025 Symphonic Season
Friday, December 6 and Saturday, December 7
Teatro La Fenice, Campo San Fantin 1965
The 2024-2025 Symphonic Season of the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice opens with a tribute to French music, led by the prestigious baton of Hervé Niquet. Accompanied by the Orchestra and Choir of Teatro La Fenice, the conductor proposes a program ranging from Baroque to Classicism, with Charpentier’s Te Deum as the centerpiece. The performance is enriched by the rediscovery of Antoine Dauvergne and Méhul’s First Symphony, works that testify to the link between France and European musical traditions.
The concert will be preceded by an introductory lecture by musicologist Roberto Mori. The first appointment, broadcast live on Rai Radio3, marks a debut full of history, research, and great spectacle.
- Venice Exhibition
from December 6 to 20, free admission daily from 10 AM to 6 PM
Paperoowl, Santa Croce 821, Fondamenta Rio Marin
Albumen prints, postcards, and visions: the visual narrative intertwines with a story made of details, glimpses, and atmospheres that bring back to light the Venice of the great 19th-century photographers. The collection of Giovanni Berlanda is a Venice of yesteryear with images from 1870 signed by masters of Italian photography such as Carlo Naya, Tommaso Filippi, G. Battista Brusa, and Alinari.
- Temporary Panoramas
Saturday, December 7, at 10 AM for one hour
Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, San Marco 3260
Info and registration: education@palazzograssi.it
A free workshop that combines the pleasure of movement with the discovery of creativity through imagination, physicality, and interaction with the environment. The protagonists of a special visit to the Palazzo Grassi Museum are boys and girls aged 6 to 11, who will bring to life the paintings exhibited at Palazzo Grassi – Julie Mehretu. ENSEMBLE with Nairy Baghramian, Huma Bhabha, Tacita Dean, David Hammons, Robin Coste Lewis, Paul Pfeiffer, and Jessica Rankin, until January 6, 2025 – experiencing play as a performative and directorial experience.
- Eva Jospin: Selva and Eva Marisaldi: Biribisso
Saturday, December 7, at 5:30 PM
Palazzo Fortuny Museum, San Marco 3958
Admission by invitation, while seats last
Presentation of the catalogs for Eva Jospin (Selva) and Eva Marisaldi (Biribisso), published by Dario Cimorelli Editore and curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto. The artists, together with Chiara Squarcina, Scientific Director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, and the curator, will delve into the work that accompanied the exhibitions.
Eva Jospin has transformed the spaces of the Fortuny Museum with an artificial forest created through paper and embroidery, an installation that leads the visitor into an undefined and suspended landscape. Eva Marisaldi, at the Carlo Goldoni’s House Museum, has created a large multisensory installation, a reflection on theater and its language, built specifically for the spaces that host it.
The exhibitions, created with the support of Galleria Continua and Galleria de’ Foscherari, have been extended until January 13 and 14, 2025.
- BEHIND THE SCENES: Abramo Massalongo Special
Saturday, December 7, at 10 AM
Giancarlo Ligabue Natural History Museum, Salizada del Fontego dei Turchi 1730
The activity is free with online reservation by selecting Special paths
Behind the exhibition halls lie the storage rooms: guardians of a heritage spanning centuries of scientific research. Abramo Massalongo, a naturalist from Verona, is one of the most significant scholars of the 19th century. On the bicentenary of his birth, the museum dedicates a path to him that explores his contribution to botany and paleontology.
The study collections, usually not accessible to the public, reveal a dialogue between local and exotic biodiversity. Among these, Massalongo’s lichenological collection is the protagonist of a digitization project that will make it available for online consultation, opening new perspectives for study.
- Je Est Un Autre
Espace Louis Vuitton
The exhibition is extended until January 12, 2025
Curated by Suzanne Pagé and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the exhibition celebrates the innovative art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, a pioneer of “street art,” known for his life-sized images that dialogue poetically with places and their memory.
The exhibition explores themes of ethical commitment and artistic innovation with works on Pasolini, Rimbaud, Anna Akhmatova, and Forough Farrokhzad.
Free admission. Book your visit.
Article by Lucia Pecoraro.
Cover photo: Ca’ Pesaro ph, Irene Fanizza.
SELVA Courtesy the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA Photos by Benoît Fougeirol. © ADAGP, Paris.
Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale, Attese, 1959, aniline on canvas, cuts and holes, 97 x 130 cm. Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan. © Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan, by SIAE 2024. Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale, 1962-63, glazed and lustred terracotta and gashes, 25.5 x 23.5 cm. Private collection. © Fondazione Lucio Fontana, Milan, by SIAE 2024.
Tea Ceremony © Andrea Favaro FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano.
Double Meaning: Tactile Paths at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Photo © Fei Xu
Paolo Toffolutti. Painting. Property of the Author.
Teatro La Fenice – orchestra and choir photo © Michele Crosera.
Rubelli © Marta Formentello.
